Los Angeles to play overseas for second time in last five seasons

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Kings will open the 2011-12 regular season in Europe with games in Germany and Sweden, the Kings, the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players’ Association announced this morning.

The games are part of 2011 Compuware NHL Premiere™ and NHL Face-Off™, as the Kings, New York Rangers, Buffalo Sabres and Anaheim Ducks will play a total of four games in three different European capital cities – Berlin, Stockholm and Helsinki – October 7-8.

On Friday, October 7, the Kings will play the Rangers at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden. The next day, Saturday, October 8, the Kings and Sabres will play each other at O2 World Arena in Berlin, Germany. The Kings are the designated “home team” for both games and the game in Berlin marks the first-ever NHL regular season game in that city.

Prior to those two regular season NHL games, the Kings on Tuesday, October 4, will play a special exhibition game at the O2 World Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany, against the Hamburg Freezers of the German Elite League.

The NHL is a truly global League with approximately 25% of NHL players this season having been born outside of North America. The current Kings roster features four players from Europe: Anze Kopitar (Slovenia), Michal Handzus (Slovakia), Alexei Ponikarovsky (Ukraine) and Oscar Moller (Sweden).

The Kings and the Ducks return to Europe for the first time since opening the 2007-08 NHL regular season in front of two sellout crowds at the O2 Arena in London. Each team recorded a 4-1 victory in the series. The Kings also that year played in and won an exhibition tournament in Salzburg, Austria, prior to traveling to London. Kings Vision provided the following two videos from that historic trip.

By the end of 2011 Compuware NHL Premiere™, 17 NHL teams – more than half of the NHL – will have played regular-season and exhibition games in Europe since 2007. These games reward the legion of loyal and passionate international NHL fans by featuring some of the game’s biggest stars and generate interest in the League worldwide.

More information on 2011 Compuware NHL Premiere™ will be released at a later date, including broadcast information, training camp schedules and complete preseason schedules.